the journal of a drinker with a running problem…

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HEY GIRL! or: the hilarity of misguided rage

So I used to work at a TV news station. My official title was web content coordinator, but everybody called me Web Girl. It made me feel like a dork superhero. And although I did many important things to facilitate the dissemination of news via the Information Superhighway, mostly people just wanted me to check on how many “computer hits” the website was getting throughout the day. And the reporters wanted to know how many people clicked on their bios. Broadcast. Pffft.

Anyway, one thing I learned about television news is that you get a lot of hate mail, mostly when you have to cut in on programming during severe weather. There’s nothing like a sad, lonely, jealous, fat and ugly person raging because you interrupted 45 seconds of the last minute of the last quarter, or worse, the season finale of [name any popular reality show].

We In The Television News Industry are sympathetic to the needs of our viewers and do our best to get through severe weather updates as quickly as possible. That’s why I was both tickled and bewildered tonight as I watched a damn near 30 minute weather cut-in, even more so when I realized it was during the season finale of The Biggest Loser. (And since you aren’t reading anything about any tornado carnage in Indiana, you can presume there really was very little weather to report.) Seriously, I worked on the Texas Gulf coast during Hurricane Emily (órale!) and we didn’t have 30-minute severe weather updates. (Okay, we did, but that was a fucking HURRICANE.)

Anyway, I made a funny tweet about it, and then headed over to WTHR’s Facebook page, where a bunch of people had expressed their displeasure (peppered with grammatical errors and misspellings, natch) with WTHR’s long-winded update. Now, in the age of social media, we all get to share in the brilliance that is hate mail!

Here are a few of my favorites:

Poor Shelly. She really tried to hold it together, but in the end, she was forced to resort to CAPS. (And the “Hey Girl!” is probably the best part.) And no, I didn’t black out the names because it’s a public page and really, these people deserve whatever ridicule they get.

Anyway, before all the barely existent severe weather struck, I managed to squeeze in another run, continuing my poorly planned and sloppily executed run streak with another 3-miler around my favorite (#sarcasm) fitness trail. I had the baby so I cruised along at an 11:15 pace, but it counts. And really, I just can’t find any fucks to give about how fast I run with the stroller. Anything running is impressive in my opinion.

We’re looking at high 80s tomorrow! Fack. Going to have to get out there early if I want to keep up this suckery. Lucky 13?

I almost choked on my lunch reading the response to that last rant. What we’ve learned is that Shelly’s friends don’t listen to her. Probably ever. The only thing that would’ve made it better would have been if it had been a Ryan Gosling “hey girl”. Like, “Hey girl, I know you’re missing your show. Want me to get you a pint of ice cream to drown your sorrows in?”